Monthly Archives: March 2012

In this week bucket challenge, we will focus on how well your body talks, your body language.

By Wikipedia definition: “Body language is a form of mental and physical ability of human non-verbal communication, which consists of body postures, gestures, facial expressions, and eye movements. Humans send and interpret such signals almost entirely subconsciously.”

By crossing their arms, people look less accessible.

In our first week of travel in Argentina, we make a broad use of body language. As we both don’t speak Spanish, so we were expecting to have some communication difficulties. We were wrong! With some wild imagination and bold demonstrations, we manage to communicate pretty well.

Here is a video example of how we use our body language to communicate. Can you understand what we are saying?

Scenario 1: Bargaining to have cheaper price
Scenario 2: Meeting a new friend and telling him his zipper is unclosed
Scenario 3: Asking for direction

A typical tourist taking pictures everywhere has arrived to the information desk and asked for:
1. place to eat
2. place to cut hairs
3. place to buy long dresses and shoes
4. place to learn how to dance; after knowing it is 50 per lesson, she decides not to go.

Did you get what we were trying to communicate??

We broadly use our body language not only when we try to communicate with Spanish speakers, but we also come to use it and practise it in a whole new context, dancing.

Buenos Aires is the city where tango is born. We couldn’t resist taking tango lessons here. At first, I was seeing tango as a very technical dance. But after a one to one dancing experience with a professional tango teacher, I have realized that tango is much more. Through tango, our personality, mood and characters are projected in the ways we dance.

It’s really surprising how much we need to constantly communicate with each other non-verbally, in order to move together smoothly with good timing, rhyme and expression. At the beginning, we were both (especially me) quite terrible in term of dance moves, timing and synchronisation. With some practices, we manage to communicate much better via a gentle push with the hands, a synchronized shoulder twisting, a look or just a slight move from the torso. Tango is like a language; through this non-verbal communication, we are able to open up a complete different views about us as a couple and how we cooperate together as a team. Now it’s time for practice!

Here are few ideas about how you can explore the non-verbal communication. It is listed sequentially in the level of difficulty:
• Watch the TV series “Lie to me”
• Watch TV with sound off or in a total different unknown language to you
• Watch opera, comedy show, ballet dancing or other dancing performance
• Try to communicate with friends like we did in the video
• Take some dance classes

With a new job opportunity, we are going to stay in Buenos Aires Argentina for a month!! It is a great opportunity graced upon us 🙂 It is a new experience for both us, as we have not been to Argentina before, nor any countries located in South America.

We did some homework about the country, places to go, things to do and food to eat! Some information to share below (extracted from Lonely Planet)

Argentina has gorgeous landscapes, cosmopolitan cities and lively culture. It is a traveler’s paradise. It stretches almost 3500km from Bolivia to the tip of South America. It is almost the size of India. There are mountains, waterfalls, glacier and shopping malls! Many opportunities to learn Spanish, tango and get to know the locals. Not to mention delicious steaks and busy night life.

So while we are there in Argentina for a month, we have come up specific bucket challenges for Argentina 🙂 (Actually the fact of being there is already a completion of one long-term bucket challenge of ours!!)

A lot of people stop learning when they finish their study. It’s understandable that after years of learning, most people are fed up with learning. But there is so much to win if we continue to learn and acquiring new knowledge.

Memory is like a muscle; if you stop learning, your ability to remember things will weaken. However this also works the other way around. The more you learn, the better is your memory. With time, you develop better strategy at learning and integrating knowledge. Learning is incremental, so don’t give up.

Put your money into learning is probably the best investment you can ever make.

Bellow is an extract from an interview with Warren Buffett:

`At a time when many college graduates face uncertain futures and are struggling to find jobs, Buffett said he still believes that “investing in yourself is the best thing you can do. Anything that improves your own talents. And I always advise students to do that, high school students, college students and obviously investing in your children is, in some ways, investing in yourself.” No matter what happens in the economy, “if you have true talent yourself, and you have maximized your talent, you have a terrific asset” ´ [source]

Learning new knowledge brings new possibilities and opportunities.

Many prestigious universities like the MIT, Stanford offer free resources and lessons (pdf, recording of lessons) to everyone to download. Recently some universities offer interactive courses made to be given online.

In these interactive courses, there are not only pdf and recording of lessons, but also quizzes, forum, exercises, study group, videos, reading material, exams and even more. All courses are given by teachers among the best in the world and for free.

So why not take classes with the most eminent teachers in the world? There are lot of courses for any subjects and any levels.

Bucket Challenge: Read or begin to read a book you will never expect to read!

(Ending Sunday 11th March 2012)

It is always rewarding to read. We learn and discover new stuffs or ways of thinking. Sometimes it is like, through reading, we live a different life, have a new friend or a coach.

Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book. ~Author Unknown

The problem is, as time passes, we end up always reading the same kind of books.

There is nothing really bad about it. The pity is that we aren’t developing further our ability to see things from different perspectives. This ability is so important, because it brings new solutions to problems, makes us more understanding and aware of the world. Most important, with this skill, we question things we never really think deeply about, i.e. our beliefs, habits, tastes, perceptions, or self-contraints. These elements, all together define our characteristics and form a big part of who we are, how we think, and what we do. They are the key elements of our being, but we rarely pay much attention to them. Isn’t that weird?

Each time, we question these elements, we become more aware of who we really are. We subsequently change, refine and strengthen our characteristics as well as ourselves.

Bucket list challenge promotes self-awareness and continuous exploring into ourselves, so we may have awesomeness in our life.

Many people think traveling is the only way to develop the ability of seeing things from different angles. But it’s not true. Traveling is for sure a great way to develop this skill, but it is not the only way. So don’t worry if you can’t afford to travel around the world. The act of reading many different kind of books, especially the books that challenge your beliefs and open your mind, is as valuable as if you were travelling.

So back to our challenge—read a book you will never pick!

You can go to a library and randomly pick a book or ask a good friend to lend you a book he thinks you will never read.

This challenge could be inexpensive and relatively easy to do, but don’t let yourself be fooled. The rewarding of doing this challenge is huge!

So keep being open minded when doing this challenge, don’t give up and let’s begin now!!